Theme #6 for Feminist Fact Friday

So far in this series I’ve covered POLITICS, HEROES, MONEY, BEHAVIOUR and MEN and not a single one of those topics has left me as out of my depth as SPORT. In full confession mode I’ve never had much of an interest in sport. But that’s not made me blind to the enormous role it plays in the lives of so many people in society. According to research from Two Circles “The average time spent participating in and consuming sport has grown by 22% over the last 10 years – almost double the rate of overall leisure time growth (12%)” and global sports sponsorship is predicted “‘to hit £35bn’ in 2019.”

Women’s sport has long been devalued and considered to be of low interest to the watching public. But I’m writing this at a time when the Lionesses have taken the nation by storm and when a male colleague kindly suggested this could be just the right topic to tackle (ahem) next on Feminist Fact Friday. So, thank you colleague for the suggestion. I’m about to take a look at my trickiest topic yet.

July – SPORT

Week 21 – Women footballers receive 10x less in FIFA prize money.

Week 22 – Women’s sport receives just 10% of media coverage.

Week 23 – Women’s sport receives just 0.4% of sponsorship money.

Sources

BBC Business of Sport 3 July 2019

BBC Global sports sponsorship ‘to hit £35bn’ in 2019 2 May 2019